4 miles up to wabun, down to lock and dam 60 degrees wind: 14 mph
I was supposed to do open swim this morning, but it was 57 degrees and very windy and I decided that was too much for me this early in the season. Lots of wind = choppier water = more sighting = sore neck, So instead I watched Paul (steak sause not sexass) Seixas abandon and Del Toro win, then went out for a windy run.
It was a tough decision not to swim; I really don’t like missing open swims. But, as I walked through our alley before I started the run and felt the cool and windy air, I was glad I hadn’t gone. The run was good. The first 5 minutes always feel strange now. Is it that my shoes aren’t quite right, or that I’m getting older, or something else I’m not imagining? I think it’s more a redesign of the shoes than anything else.
I don’t remember what I thought about, and not much of what I noticed. I ran on the narrow and root-y strip of dirt in the grassy boulevard until I reached the 44th street parking lot. I don’t remember hearing any distinctive birds or avoiding any squirrels.
10 Things
a trio of roller skiers on the double bridge
2 bikers crossing in front of me to bike down to the overlook at the south entrance of the winchell trail
a bike zooming by me
a man sitting on a bench near the locks and dam, fishing
a squeaking noise as something on a light pole was jarred loose in the wind
choppy water under the ford bridge
the dirt path that winds through the grass was narrower in past years — are people using it less?
someone slowly jogging up the locks and dam hill, then stopping at the top
3 people spread across the bottom of the wabun hill, one of them pusing a bike and holding a (too) loose leash with a small dog
an older couple, the man pushing a walker, on the edge of the trail near the coyote den nearby sign, looking at something — the river? the coyote den? something across, on the east bank?
For most of the run I don’t remember much of what I heard. For the last mile, I listened to my “It’s Windy” playlist. Favorite song today: “Summer Breeze.”
I almost forgot about the shadows! Actually, I did forget about the shadow for several hours until suddenly they popped into my head. At the locks and dam, running by a fence, I saw some sharp shadows and stopped to take a picture:
shadows / locks and dam no 1 / 14 june 2026
Fence and shadow, shadow and fence. Which is more real?
1 loop lake nokomis open swim 69 degrees wind: 16 mph / gusts: 32 mph
The first Friday morning open swim! Windy. Again, the water temperature was warmer than the air. In the water: ah! Out of the water: brrrrr!! The new way to start the swim: swimming through a patch of thick vegetation. Oh well. I’ll get used to it during open swim. A question: will it be possible to swim around the white buoys on days I don’t have open swim, or will the weeds be too thick? Maybe I can find out by going for a morning swim on Monday?
RJP came with me to the lake. She wasn’t ready to swim across the lake, and said she might try going in for a swim in the beach area. When I returned from my first loop, there she was! We swam together for a few minutes, then I convinced her to swim out to the white buoy. She did, but it freaked her out, especially when she saw the little big of milfoil there. I told her that the milfoil was much, much worse on the other side. We agreed that she might not be ready to swim across the lake this summer. She might try to swim at a pool instead.
It was almost impossible for me to see the buoys heading toward the little beach. Because it was morning, the sun was in my eyes. I kept swimming and didn’t panic when nothing but waves and trees and blue sky were in front of me. Eventually, the flash of the buoy far off to my right. I adjusted it, then swam straight to the third buoy. On the way back, it was easier to see the buoys, but harder to stroke through the water. So much chop! Mostly, I didn’t mind the water being choppy, although it did tire me out.
10 Things
slimy lake floor — covered with milfoil leaves
sparkles on the water surface
ghost vines, 1: reaching up, far enough down in some spot near shore that I could only see the ghostly tips
ghost vines, 2: clustered just below the surface, making it impossible to swim a full freestyle stroke
shaft of light reaching down to the bottom at an angle
1 2 3 4 breathe right 1 2 3 4 breathe right
1 2 breathe right 1 2 3 breathe left 1 2 breathe left 1 2 3 breathe right
2-3 foot waves, rolling at an angle
finishing the swim, standing up, feeling the very cold air
standing in the shallower water (almost up to my shoulders), a small black bird — small enough that I thought it might be a butterfly — flew right past my face
things not noticed or forgotten: sparkle friends, bubbles, silver flashes, the water surface glowing orange because of a reflection from the orange buoy, sailboats, menacing swans, kayakers
He thrashed his way across the yellow lake, high in the water streaming past his shoulders one arm akimbo, then the other, feet churning like a paddlewheel behind, and never faltering to whistle, whoop, spout like a whale, but simply, ceaselessly trudgening forward to attack the water the lake had clamped between its bulldozed knees.
That forward motion, hinging on the shoulder, that steady beat, the tug of arms and legs, that deafness, purposefulness, isolation he kept despite the hurl of rushing water— these were the obsessions of a poet who celebrates the instincts of his body religiously as one who greets the sunrise crosslegged at the entrance to a cave.
For more than forty years I’ve watched this swimmer in elements no less unknown than water tell secrets of the ways we make a poem, the way of Lilburne Lewis with an ax, the way of entrance to a woman’s body, the way a deer can bleed to death in snow.
The swimmer’s ears are sealed from careless words that picnickers are shouting from the shore: his eyes squeeze shut, to open only when he takes a sight upon that destination to which ambition, force, despair have pointed.
How can he, in the cavern of the lake, let up his churning enterprise to listen, since, for the sake of breathing, he must swim as though the shore ahead did not recede, as though he did not know we never arrive?
His body keeps the pulse of water music that swimmers cradle as they force a passage, forever pressing the receding shore, crazed one-eyed gods who gape into the sun.
Oh, I like this! The description of the poet as swimmer resonates for me.
That forward motion, hinging on the shoulder, that steady beat, the tug of arms and legs, that deafness, purposefulness, isolation he kept despite the hurl of rushing water— these were the obsessions of a poet who celebrates the instincts of his body religiously as one who greets the sunrise crosslegged at the entrance to a cave.
Celebrating the instincts of the body. Yes!
The “for Robert Penn Warren” in the epitaph was in another swimming poem I found earlier in the search (Swimming After Thoughts/ Jay Parini). Did RPWarren swim a lot? Yes, and it was deeply connected to his writing/creating process:
The rhythm of Robert Penn Warren’s life now is settled but not sedate. He rises early, fixes his own breakfast, exercises with a set of barbells kept on the living room floor then dons trunks and a plastic cap and makes the short walk to a bower-hidden swimming hole behind his summer home. He swims nearly a mile in the chilly water, sculling along at a steady, rigorous pace. The clay-bottomed pool is surrounded by ferns and high trees, and in the morning—as thin, miasmic bars of sunlight filter down, dappling the water in tones of emerald and gold—it is Edenic. Here, his body aching slightly from the exertion and his mind free from worries, Warren slips into a creative trance. This is the the hour when the images bloom. The swims are never draining, are in fact less taxing than distance running, the exercise he used to stimulate himself when he was younger. As Warren strokes back and forth through the glittering pond, a poem usually flowers.
Continuing to read, I found this cool connection to a writer and their memoir about vision loss that I checked out and read (some of, at least) 6 or more years ago:
Three years ago, Eleanor Clark was partially blinded by the disease macular degeneration. At first, the condition seemed hopeless and was emotionally devastating. Clark had written several books, and in 1965 had won the National Book Award for her non-fiction account of the men and women who work in the French oyster industry, The Oysters of Locmariaquer. Her vision stabilized about six months after she was stricken, allowing her to perceive dim, impressionistic glimpses of the world and return to her writing. Composing sentences by drawing giant Magic Marker letters on blank sheets of newsprint then transcribing these jottings with a large-type typewriter while peering through a lighted magnifying glass, she wrote a book about the fight to regain control of her life: Eye, etc.
RPWarren’s wife is Eleanor Clark, the author of Eye, etc! I recognized the book from the description of her writing process with big black markers. I should return to this book! (I just requested it from my local library!)
8.1 miles ford loop + hidden falls 64 degrees dew point: 59
Technically, if I follow Scott’s plan, I’m supposed to run 9 miles today. But I’m going hiking at the dog park later this morning and swimming at the lake this evening, so I kept it to 8. I wasn’t fast, but I’m pleased with this run. I didn’t feel great at the beginning; it was very sticky and breathing wasn’t that easy. My heart rate shot up pretty fast, too. I wondered how I could keep running when it was already so hot and I felt so bad. Then I decided to not worry about how much I walked and to just keep going. For the ford loop (the first 4 miles), I ran until my heart rate reached 169, then I walked until it got down to 125. At Hidden Falls, I tried something new: run 90 seconds, walk 30 seconds. I wasn’t sure if I could handle having to look at my watch so much and stopping every 1.5 minutes, but I didn’t mind it, and breaking the time up into small increments made it go by faster — or made me think less about it as some big, overwhelming amount. This is the Galloway method of training. I think I’ll try it on my next long run for the entire run.
For most of the run, I listened to my book, Ariadne. For the last mile, I listened to my bunnies playlist.
5 Running and 5 Hiking Things
the overcast sky made the green in the tunnel of trees seem deeper and darker
a slash of orange on the ancient boulder
a big log floating in the river near the east side of the ford bridge — was it a log? a boat? a person?
a coxswain calling out instructions over his bullhorn to some rowers — heard, not seen
roots buckling the sidewalk, looking like slithering snakes
the entrance to the dog park was dark and green and inviting in an almost sinister way
evidence all around of the big storm 2 nights ago: giant felled trees, trunks tipped over and reaching for the river, a thick branch that must have been blocking the trail before someone cut it
drops of rain hitting the surface of the river, creating slight ripples that distorted the water near the shore
bark bark bark bark bark bark — an enthusiastic dog
kerplunk! splash! a dog swimming more than halfway across the river, moving fast
hike: 40 minutes minnehaha off leash dog park 63 degrees drizzle off and on
dog name:the swimming dog’s name was Millie — okay Millie, come here — a human calling to the dog
According to FWA, it’s supposed to rain off and on all day. We managed to mostly miss it, only a few drips on the river surface. We talked about terrible chemistry professors and doing hip thrusts with weights on your lap. FWA performed an imaginary conversation between Delia and another dog. In this conversation, they talked about how great the dog park is. Delia bragged about getting to come twice a week and the other dog said they only went once but that the yard surrounding their mansion was bigger than the dog park.
Now I invite you to find the water. In Diné thought, change happens in fours, manifestation happens in fours. There are four sacred mountains, four worlds that we emerge from into our current world. I invite you to create a poem in four steps.
First: find a body of water to sit with and listen. A river, a lake, an ocean—let it connect with the water inside of you. And let the sound that it makes work on your body and your mind and your heart.
Second: build your relationship with the water. Listen for what the water has awakened inside of you. What do you feel? Where do you feel it in your body? What stories are brought to the surface?
Third: follow the reverberations. Write down some of your thoughts, your feelings, your memories. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar, or about making things sound writerly or whether they make sense or not.
Fourth: make an offering to the water. Share what the water gave life to in the form of your poem. Touch the water and give thanks.
waterlogged: heavy with water, dense, difficult to manage, not dry, less buoyant, damaged/distorted/warped by excess water, soggy, characterized by the presence of a lot of water
swim: 2 loops lake nokomis open swim 64 degrees (air) 71 degrees (water)
After finishing my run and the hike, it started raining. Off and on, all day. By the time I went to open swim the temperature had dropped enough that the water was much warmer than the air. There was wind, too, which made the water choppy. I didn’t care. It was fun to swim into and through the waves. I swam straight to many of the buoys even when I barely realized I was seeing them. I think I did less sighting and more swimming without looking. It’s strange how much more comfortable I feel now when I see so much less.
a regular:As I exited the water an older man heading in asked me how it was. I said, it’s choppy, but I like it that way. He agreed and then we talked about the crazy amount of milfoil in the water. I have decided that I have said enough about it — it’s out of control and dangerous. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of someone drowning in it. And, like blue green algae blooms, I just need to get used to it and find ways to avoid and/or endure it. Just before he left, the man introduced himself and shook my hand. I’m Joe. / I’m Sara./ Nice to meet you.
Other things I remember: a few patches of blue sky; opaque water with a few silver flashes; a woman swimming, her arms entering the water without her elbows bending; the roar of rushing wind; swimming just barely over the top of the milfoil; the ridgeline of the wave as it rippled over the water; a swimmer exerting a lot of extra energy kicking, white foam everywhere; the hard bump of my safety buoy hitting me in the waves; the silcence and solitude when I stopped in the middle of the lake; looking to my right and seeing a dark line of clouds, hovering
8:43 am — The first open swim of the year isn’t until the late afternoon, but I’m already excited. Currently I am sitting at my desk. Outside of my window, workers are cutting down the maple tree in our front yard. Someone is up in a bucket with a chainsaw sawing the thick branches then securing them with rope, someone else is on the ground to catch them. It’s a slow, noisy process — and strangely quiet, too. No loud THUMPS! from a branch hitting the ground. Noises: chainsaw, rumble of their big trucks, whine of a leaf blower, thud of the truck bed bottom as the cut limbs are discarded / Noises not heard: no heavy thumps, no shouting from workers to each other1, no beeps or alarms. It is now 9:02. I wonder how long it will take for them to cut it all down.
It’s sad to lose such an old tree — the only (or one of the only?) maples on the block. Everything else is linden/basswood or locust.
It’s also not sad. Mostly this tree has been a nuisance — leaf debris and whirly gigs clogging our gutters, thick tangles of roots taking over our sewer pipe. Every year Ron the Sewer Rat has had to chop those roots up so that our sewer wouldn’t back up.
In front of my window: the bucket is being raised again; it’s herky jerky yet smooth motion almost like a strange dance.
And it’s a relief. Ever since a huge branch fell from this tree last fall, I’ve been worried that another would fall and hurt someone or something. I’m glad we’re finally doing something about it.
currently: branches are gently falling in front of me, a few of them reflecting on the glass of a desktop boom! boom! — as they are tossed in the back of a truck / now it’s raining little twigs and bigger twigs and branches
10 Things About this Maple Tree
Unsuccessfully attempting to weed-whack around it, giving up and hand-pulling the tall, flowering grass
it is a wonderful example of a tree looking like a person, buried upside down, their head and shoulders in the dirt, while their torso and legs stick up in the air
this winter/early spring, I could hear a woodpecker drumming on its dead wood — brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
one summer a few years ago, FWA helped me to try to get rid of some ants “naturally” by pouring boiling water in their ant hill — not sure if it killed the ants, but it destroyed the grass around the base of the tree
last summer, or the summer before, I noticed a new branch growing near the bedroom window and thought, we should really cut that while we can still can, then watching it grow bigger and bigger until it was too late
recently noticed: a big eye in the middle of the trunk where a sizable branch used to be
the leaves on this trees, which turn a golden yellow, are the last to fall in November
all i can see of this tree from the two windows in front of my desk is the edge of its trunk
a sudden thought: I hope we’re not disrupting too many critters’ homes — I don’t recall hearing or seeing any nests in the winter
I won’t miss having to sweep up whirly gigs on the front sidewalk or pull them out of the table on the deck or the planter in the backyard
I’m sure the loss of this tree will have effects (negative and positive) that I can’t even imagine.
hike: 40 minutes minnehaha off leash dog park 78 degrees
FWA and I cut our walk short today because he had to go to the bathroom. We only hiked to the BIG felled tree. The parking lot was more than half full, but it didn’t feel crowded. Everyone was evenly spaced out and doing their own thing, not clustered at the entrance or on the trail. For the first half of the hike, it was cool and calm, with a gentle breeze. No encounters with aggressive dogs or jerky humans. No dog names overheard. Several very FAST! dogs. So fast that they couldn’t be bothered to stop and play with Delia. One German Shepherd zoomed by so fast that I gasped — wow, that dog is fast!
FWA schooled me on a video game term2: de/buffing. Used in sentence: Walking through that second patch of sun, I was debuffed and never recovered.
de/buffed: (from Reddit because I can’t remember FWA’s exact definition) “Debuff is a game term that means something was hit with an attack that causes negative affects. In this case it “de-buffs” your agility. In games, buff means you strengthen; to improve.”
We talked about how Delia loves to plop down in the soft sand then imagined a t-shirt with the many versions of Delia chilling:
ploppin’
DOD (dead on deck) when Delia lays down on the deck , with her head landing last, looking like she’s passed out or dead on the deck
DOR — a DOD variation: dead on rug
wedged between two of Scott’s pillows on our bed
wedged between the edge of her bed and the removable cushion
sprawled out quietly on the rug, under the dining room table
resting misery face: in her bed, her head hanging over the edge, looking miserable
11:01 am Louder thumps as leafless chunks of branches fall / the front yard is strewn with little branch trees / the bucket, suspended halfway up the tree / a big claw reaching up to grab branches, lift them, then toss them in the back of a truck
11:04 am one worker in an orange vest threw up the rope to the guy in the bucket, now the rope is being tied to a branch — when and how will it fall? gently or roughly? with a loud Boom! or a soft thud? / a spray of saw dust is coming down / the branch gently floated down, attached to the rope — I saw it dangling in front of the window! — then boom boom — two quick, deep booms / So much debris in our front yard — very grateful I don’t have to pick it up!
11:10am
view from my window / 11:10 am
11:14 am
The sound of a big branch falling, then its cylindrical reflection in the glass top on my desk. A very dead, tall and thin branch falling, reflected in the glass / a worker with a chainsaw, cutting a big branch off a bigger branch — grrrrrrrrrrr
1:07 pm
Sawing the trunk: sawdust sparks / dangling from a rope / the ground nears
swimming with Lauren Groff
Sure, I have many ideas and projects and plans for what I’d like to write/make/create this summer, but I also have a strong desire (need? ache?) to just be with the water and the swimming and the words (or lack of words). I want to return to Anne Carson and Alice Oswald and Lauren Groff and Tony Hoaglund and Anne Sexton and Maxine Kumin and re-memorize their poetry. I also want to revisit past Sara’s thoughts about water and swimming and first days of open swim.
Speaking of Lauren Groff (which I did, above), I’m currently reading her short story collection, Brawler. Here’s a short video in which she talks about it and how swimming made her a writer:
In addition to finding this video, I also found this short blog entry about Groff’s love of swimming:
I was expecting to enjoy Lauren Groff’s collection of short stories Delicate Edible Birds, but I had no idea that here was another work of swim-lit. Like Groff’s first novel, the marvelous The Monsters of Templeton, these stories take place around bodies of water, and they’re also much concerned with swimming and swimmers. (I’ve not finished the book yet, but I’ve just started reading one story about a deep-sea diver). I realized that I’d read the story L. Debard and Aliette before, in the 2006 Atlantic Fiction Issue, and remember it quite vividly these years later– turned out I liked Lauren Groff before I even knew Lauren Groff. It’s an amazing story of poolside sensuality. The stories linked by these swimming references in a way that intrigues me, and certainly satisfies by latest literary fixation. How positively timely.
2:30 pm — workers are done, tree is gone, only a 4 ft stump that we have to figure out what to do with remains — hopefully a gnome home!
blue-green algae advisory
Open Swim is not cancelled, but there is a blue-green algae bloom in the water and a water advisory. The “official” Open Swim Club Facebook page has an announcement with the required warning, but the tone definitely seems to be: we have to warn you, but we think if you use caution, you’ll be fine. We’d like to say it’s fine and you should swim, but we can’t. I’m still going, but maybe I’ll only do one loop. And maybe I’ll try to swim a little slower and to look out for it. Can I see it? Not easily.
bike: 8 miles lake nokomis and back 85 degrees
Biking to the lake for open swim was great. Warm, but not too crowded and I was able to pass someone without any stress. We didn’t bike fast, but it didn’t feel slow and it’s always safer to bike slow when you can’t focus fast. The bike ride back was harder, with too much wind and clueless walkers walking in the middle of the bike path. Scott rang his “passive agressive bell” (his name for it) half a dozen times and one woman didn’t even notice.
swim: 2 loops lake nokomis 87 degrees
A great first swim. I couldn’t see much, and I didn’t care, my shoulders and brain still swam me straight to the buoys. There were some clueless swan boats and too many vines — it’s crazy how thick they are near the start of the swim! — but they didn’t bother me. I was happy to be swimming and felt strong.
It’s too late and I need to eat, so no more writing about the lake tonight. Tomorrow if I can remember anything, I’ll add some more.
10 Water Things (the morning after)
murky water, but enough clarity for me to be able to see my hand and watch and . . .
bubbles! my bubble friends are back — clear little orbs stirred up as my hands entered the water
a scratchy-squeaky noise as I neared another swimmer — was it their wetsuit? a cracking of a joint or a bone or?
vines 1: started out by swimming straight into a knot of milfoil — when I tried to do a full stroke green strings wrapped around my wrist — join us down below, they seemed to be whispering
vines 2: at the end of the second loop, near the white buoys, ghostly vines emerging from below, not yet close enough to touch
vines 3: rounding the far white buoy, getting stuck in another tangle of milfoil — as I said to another swimmer a few minutes later, I’m a very strong swimmer and those vines made me nervous!
finding one distinctive break in the green in an otherwise generic tree line to use to sight the far green buoy
this year, there are 2 orange buoys and 3 green ones
noticing the pale rope that tethers the buoy to the lake floor as I swam over it
suddenly noticing something in front of me, stopping and hearing a person in a kayak call out, kayak — I think it was a lifeguard, but it could have just been a clueless kayaker crossing the swim course
Mentioned how quiet the workers are to Scott. He found out why when he talked to them: they have headsets. Nice! ↩︎
On our bike ride to the lake I quizzed Scott on this term. He had heard it but couldn’t remember what it was. He said it’s primarily used in first-person shooter games, which he doesn’t play. ↩︎
3.15 miles locks and dam turn around 70 degrees humidity: 88% / dew point: 67
Sticky. Moist. Steamy. Wet. Not raining, but water water everywhere. It felt cool on my fingers and face when I brushed against a bush or when the wind shook the leaves.
Sometimes I felt great, sometimes I didn’t. I was wearing my old black Sauconys because it was so wet and they made my toe hurt for the last mile. My heart rate was higher too. I’ve determined (decided?) that my heat tolerance has decreased because of perimenopause. I’m having some hot flashes and struggling to run/move/stand/be in the heat. I’m thinking of asking for Hormone Replacement Therapy.
As I ran, I recited Wallace Steven’s poem, “Tattoo.” The light is like a spider./ It crawls over the water./It crawls over the edges of the snow./ It crawls under your eyelids/And spreads its webs there. I love this idea of the light like a spider spinning its webs under your eyelids. I also like that the first thing Stevens’ spider-light does is crawl over the water — a good connection to my water season, which starts tomorrow! Open swim!
10 Things
a biker blasting music from speakers — country music (I think) — before I could hear much of it, it was distorted by the Doppler effect
the brown sign that reads, caution, coyote den, is still there — are the coyotes?
bright headlights piercing through the dark green and gray
the sewer pipe near 42nd was gushing
a long line of cars on the road
a string of bikers on the path
a few puddles
the wind picked up, the trees shifted, making me wonder if it started raining agin
a group of kids laughing somewhere in the distance, approaching
2 lime scooter parked on the edge of trail — both times I neared them, I thought they were people
lines / strings / webs / spiders
a spider moment: As I was about to take a shower, I noticed spider traveling down the tiles. I didn’t want to kill it, or douse it with water, so I turned on the water with the spray pointed away from the tiles and asked the spider to leave. They did — not because of the words, but because of the pressure/feeling of the water.
how long do spiders live?Although most spiders live for at most two years, tarantulas and other mygalomorph spiders can live for over 20 years. (source)
how long have modern spiders existed? The main groups of modern spiders, Mygalomorphae and Araneomorphae, first appear in the Triassic well before 200 million years ago. (source)
orb orb (spiral) webs, orb as eye, orbiting, encircling/enclosing, a spherical body
Alice Oswald, a spider referencein Nobody
A goddess or fog-shape in full wedding dress sulks in that loneliness what a winter creature whose lover loathes the everlasting clouds of her and sits in tears staring at the pleasure-crinkled sea but she as if a dash of hope discoloured her sight stands waiting the way a spider when it wishes to travel simply lets out a silken
aerial
electrostatically alert through every hair to the least shift of the atmosphere at last it lifts on tiptoe and lovely to behold like a bare twig it begins to blow wherever the wind will take it but the wind is the most distracted messenger I know
After citing this, Kit Fan writes:
The new lines at the end of the page carry a rhyme scheme (aabcbc) rare in Nobody and connect the goddess (the owl-eyed Athena who is Odysseus’s protector in The Odyssey?) with the precise, calculated work of a spider, breathing a different kind of life into the “discoloured” world without the watercolors. The two versions of Nobody create a counter-parallel universe for Oswald’s reimagination of The Odyssey, revisualizing the epic as a collage made out of imagist fragments or glimpses of “water-stories,” as the jacket to the UK version calls them. The two texts speak to each other like twins staring at themselves in the mirror, registering uncanny similarities and differences.
The precise calculated work of a spider. Tomorrow, I want to write a little more about the making of a web and the use of spun silk to travel. I also want to return to Alice Oswald and reread The Odyssey again. I love the Wilson translation! I just looked it up and the movie coming out next month is based on this translation. Excellent!
8 miles lake nokomis and back 68 degrees humidity: 83% / dew point: 60
So hot! I had planned to bring my water but at the last minute, I didn’t. I should have. At the halfway point, my heart rate was high for such an easy pace. Had to take several walk breaks. I really struggle to run in the heat.
Some things to remember for future runs: run earlier, bring water, drink water the night before, come prepared with poetry distractions (e.g.: recite poems in head).
Scott and I realized that doing our long runs together is not a good idea. We have different strategies and different weaknesses that need to be addressed. So instead, we’ll plan to run our middle distance weekly run together.
What did we talk about? Not much; we were too hot and uncomfortable running. Just remembered something as I wrote “many” in number 5 of my10 things. We discussed the range of descriptive words: a pair, a few, some, several, lots, many, most, all. I talked about how I use lots too often and that it sounds clunky. We also talked about bringing the kids to the playground at Lake Nokomis, especially to the big dinosaur, and losing touch with some old friends.
10 Things
a woman with a hose, watering some flowers in her front yard. as we ran by, she called out: free shower?
a loud hose hissing nearby
a lively game on the pickle ball court, with an enthusiastic player cheering loudly for someone
everything completely still, heavy — Scott pointed out how the tops of the trees weren’t moving at all
blue water with many sparkles
blue-green algae advisory at the beach, 2 kids in the water
running over the bridge, looking down and seeing the glowing green water — yuck!
passing another runner with a dog — good morning! / morning!
at the Lake Nokomis playground, running by a log with rows of evenly cut holes — what is this for? how do kids play with it?
the booming voice of an announcer at the big beach: a charity event for lymphoma
Not the best run, but I’m choosing to think of it as a reminder to be more deliberate and disciplined in my training.
webs
I decided to make a spider web on a piece of cardboard. Some improvement is needed, but I’m pleased with it as my first attempt. Will I do anything with this? Unsure, but it keeps coming up, so I’m seeing where it leads.
my first attempt at a web, using light gray-blueish yarn
Warm and windy. So windy that I had to take my cap off as I crossed the lake street bridge. The river looked low. I think I saw a long sandbar near the east shore. My feet were still a little sore, but mostly felt okay. Chanted in triple berries for the first 2 miles. Listened to my bunnies and rabbits playlist for the last mile.
11 Things
no rowing shells on the water, but the big white motor boat that follows alongside the rowers was out there, near the dock at the rowing club
workers on the other side of the lake street bridge, fixing something and making a lot of noise doing it
glittering waves close to the easi bank
shadow falls was falling vigorously
running up from the under the bridge on the st. paul side, looking below at the water, envious of my shadow in the water
on the ledge of the overlook at the monument: a insulated coffee mug, white
below the overlook, a person with a dog
tea kettle tea kettle or cheeseburger cheeseburger — a carolina wren somewhere
a person wearing something bright orange, sitting with their bike near the upper entrance to shadow falls
kids being dropped off at the daycare at the church, some by car, one by bike
a handmade wood sign declaring ICE OUT in a neighbor’s front yard on the next block
holes
Time to wrap up this hole project for a few months. I have 4 visual poems that I think are . . . not finished but . . . ready to be considered done. Hole 1, Hole 3, Hole 5a, and Hole 5c. I can imagine returning to them in the fall and trying new (more advanced?) techniques with thread and grids and layers — not just 2D, but 3D.
Well, I would have finished all of the hole poems if a HUGE limb hadn’t fallen right outside my window. We (Scott, FWA, and I) had to drop everything and remove the tree, which took almost 2 hours. Scott happened to be working on a YouTube video as it happened and got a recording of it falling. Yikes!
Warm, sunny. Not too bad in the shade. Ran down to the entrance of the locks and dam no. 1, turned around, stopped to walk for a few minutes, put in my “Moment” playlist, then started running again, When I got to “Lose Yourself,” I did a few strides. Felt a few brief flashes of a runner’s high.
10 Things
bawk bawk cockadoodle doo! heard from far away, slowly approaching — what is that? A bike with an open bike trailer passed by, 2 kids in the back pretending to be a chicken and a rooster
no cars on the way down to the locks and dam, only one car parked at the bottom
some voices above me, on the trail going up to Wabun or on the ford bridge
an orange water cooler with a sing, “Mill City Running” near the bench above the edge of the world
empty benches — maybe one or two occupied
a biker passing, blasting techno music — even if there had been a doppler effect on the music how would you be able to tell?
swallowed a bug — forgot about it until an hour later when I had a few coughing bouts — Bug! I called out, to no one
the rush of leaves through the trees sounding like falling water
stopping at a water fountain near the end of my run, waiting for another runner to finish, soaking my hat — I have no memory of what it felt like to put the wet hat on. Did it drip down my face? Did it feel cool? I have no idea
Walking back, noticing a grid on the lattice of a neighbor’s fence — at first I thought, squares, then lines
I started thinking about grids and lines and my interest in them, which led to thinking about how open swim involves some lines, or maybe not lines but trajectories — from buoy to buoy to buoy, and it also has an imaginary grid and points on that grid. But, open swim also has no lane lines. You are tethered/connected to the world and others in a different logic. I’ve already written about this in a few different ways, including in this poem, from my recently published chapbook, Inklings:
My geometry
of open swimming: an eye, lake water. Both of us now grids with one dot in our centers — a cone cell that works, a buoy that beacons. A line drawn between passes through vacant lots and murky seas as it tethers us to each other — swimmer and vision, buoy and body, to sight and to rarely see.
35 minutes minnehaha off leash dog park 75 degrees
A shorter walk because of the heat and the aggressive energy from other dogs. Lots of very fast running and circling and barking. Two dogs ran by me so close, I could feel their wind on my legs. As we walked, we could hear a chorus of LOUD barks up ahead — one so loud that it was echoing.
dog name: Chief / a big German Shepherd / on a leash, tightly controlled by his owner. Of course Delia teased the dog before we had a chance to stop her. The owner held on tight and managed to keep the dog under control — no chief, no! I wondered to FWA if they had recently adopted an abused dog who needed a lot of help getting socialized to other dogs.
The sand in the floodplain was deep and soft. I could feel it seeping into my sandals. It was cool, which was nice until it got stuck and collected under my covered toes. These are not the shoes to wear here! I declared to FWA. Why did I buy hiking sandals with a closed toe? I remember: they were half off.
Before Chief shifted the energy, FWA was giving a wonderful description of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid 4 animated movie. He’s so skilled at telling stories and conveying the energy of the characters. My favorite part: when he acted out the voice of one of the characters who broke their compass. That’s it. We’re lost.
Even though she was tired and hot, having plopped down in the sand at least once, when Delia saw some bigger dogs up ahead running in circles around a tree and through some grass, she tried to join in. She wasn’t fast enough. When she tried harder, they ignored her. Oh Delia, you’re out of your league. Finally, she gave up.
moment of joy: a tall Dad holding the hand of a very little girl (2 or 3?) as she looked up at him smiling or giggling and hiked down the hill gracefully.
11 Unhinged Energy Things
the moment Chief’s owners noticed us up ahead and prepared themselves for the encounter — the woman took a deep breath and said, it will be okay or get ready or we can do this
that sand! — so soft and deep and slippery — the coolness of it as it poured into my sandal
kerplunk! crash! a very large something thrashing through the water — a big dog, I thought — no, 2 or 3 big dogs
an owner calling to a dog (I can’t remember the dogs name) and the dog running as fast as I’ve ever seen a dog run. Wow!
two big dogs running beside then past me — any closer and they would have taken me out
BARK! BARK! yip yip bark bark ruff ruff — the cacophony of dogs up ahead, playing or fighting or who knows what at the beach at the end of the trail
a strange and loud knocking or clanking sound up above us, in the tree
dog after dog after big dog, flashing past, some barking, some silent — somehow the silent ones felt even more unnerving
dumping sand out of my sandals near the car, feeling something strange and sticky on the bottom of my foot that wouldn’t come off — a bug?! — a slight panic and a frantic waving of my foot– realizing minutes later that I had put a bandaid on last night
FWA driving us back on the river road — a car that was going 12 mph in a 20 mph zone that hardly anyone ever obeys — average speed for most cars here = 30 mph — a growing back-up of cars behind it — FWA turning off of the road at the first available chance with a flourish and declaring, someone needs their license taken away!
encountering a truck on a narrow city street, noticing a low-to-the-ground recumbent bike drafting off it then trying to pass it while the truck was still moving — FWA was so distracted that he pulled out in front of another truck
Cooler this morning, earlier too. My goal was to run at 7. My watch says I started the run at 7:07, which means I left the house around 7. Nice. Wore my old (2021, I think) Sauconys that I stopped wearing because they made by big left toe hurt. At mile 4, my toe started hurting again. Bummer. Back to Brooks again or buying a new pair of cheaper Sauconys.
Ran to the falls without headphones, listening to the cars and the geese returning north. Ran back listening to my “Bunnies and Rabbits” playlist. Bad Bunny’s “BAILE INoLVIDABLE” and The Jazz Crusader’s “Young Rabbits” helped me to pick up the pace. I need to create a playlist for pace — maybe mix it in with my beat/metronome experiment: 1 mile with no music or beat / 1 mile with metronome at 172-180 / 1 mile with music.
10 Things
honk honk honk honk geese returning
sparkling water
soft shadows
a runner behind, breathing heavily, closing in, then disappearing — where did they go?
white foam (the falls)
a roller skier — or was it a roller blader?
tufts of symmetrically place ornamental grass mixed with purple blooms near “The Song of Hiawatha”
a woman in a bright yellow windbreaker passing me on a bike, calling out morning!
Mr. Morning! — morning! / good morning!
ending at the big rock that looks like a chair, stepping on it to look down at the oak savanna: green green green
a return
This winter, I replaced many of my regular habits with new ones: (almost) no alcohol; waiting an hour to drink coffee in the morning; more protein, fiber, and iron; instead of sitting at the dining room table for 1+ hours when I woke up reading poems-of-the-day, I watched a brief video then started work on my Holes project; a consistent bedtime routine — ready at 10, asleep by 10:30. I also transformed my workspace. I added a huge cork board to one wall. It’s been fun to mix it up and try new things. I’d like to continue with many of these new things, and I also want to return to a few I’ve shifted away from, especially reading / studying / memorizing other people’s poetry.
In writing this log entry, I decided to visit my favorite poetry sites — poets.org; poetryfoundation, poets.com. On Poetry Foundation I discovered a wonderful podcast series, Wake, Butterfly:
Matsuo Bashō wrote:
Wake, butterfly— it’s late, we’ve miles to go together.
Poetry magazine presents Wake, Butterfly, a series of intimate portraits that invite listeners to keep creating.
The final installment, which is the first I’ve encountered and will listen to, is with Marie Howe, one of my favorite poets! I think I’ll listen to it on the deck.
an hour or so later: I listened to it as I mowed the back yard. Usually I listen to the Bob’s Burgers Soundtrack (and I did today, too, after the 15 minute podcast ended). I’ve also listened to podcasts with Joy Harjo and Vs. with Danez Smith and Franny Choi, and several Agatha Christie books.
I love Marie Howe’s voice. Two times I recall hearing it before: when she was interviewed for On Being 6 or 7 years ago (at least) and in her brief discussion and recitation of her poem-in-progress, “Singularity.” In this podcast, she describes living with a big Irish Catholic family and the stories they would tell. She talks about war (WWII and Vietnam) and how she found poetry. Then she offers this:
I think the poem uses our stuff, you know, like it uses the details of my life, but the details are not important. The details are the cup … That hold something you can’t quite see, but you can feel, I hope. Because when it works, I feel something I can’t see. When I was writing a book called What the Living Do, it wasn’t done yet and I didn’t know how it wasn’t done. It had enough pages, it had an arc, I guess. But I was thinking about when I was in high school and. I was living up in the attic of our house with my brother. My brother lived in one room and I lived in another, and my dad would come up there when he was drunk and, um, pester me for hours—the way a drunk person does, wanting attention, wanting something, and it was very difficult. That’s one of the stories in my heart about my younger life, and I thought, “OK, what else is also true about that story?” And I remember actually standing up from my desk in New York here, and turning around, turning my body around 180 degrees and saying, “What else is true?” And I saw my brother Tom, who would come into the room and try to get my dad out, or would come into the room after my dad had left, and I wanted to praise him. So I want to offer you this invitation. Consider one of the stories of your life that feels fixed, and allow yourself to gaze around that story—quite physically—around the room of it or the time of it and to find something else in that story, even if the story is a painful one, to find something else in that story that’s praisable.
Consider one of the stories of your life that feels fixed, and allow yourself to gaze around that story—quite physically—around the room of it or the time of it and to find something else in that story, even if the story is a painful one, to find something else in that story that’s praisable.
I love this idea of taking a fixed story and finding something else in that story to praise. I think I need to sit with this one for a few hours.
Before then, this:
The Maples/ Marie Howe
I ask the stand of maples behind the house,
How should I live my life?
They said, shh shh shh . . .
How should I live, I asked, and the leaves seemed to ripple and gleam.
A bird called from a branch in its own tongue,
And from a branch, across the yard, another bird answered.
A squirrel scrambled up a trunk
then along the length of a branch.
Stand still, I thought,
See how long you can bear that.
Try to stand still, if only for a few moments,
drinking light breathing.
—
This standing still — seeing how long I can bear it — seems like a great thing to do everyday. As part of this: explore different ways to be still. What is it to be still?
The beginning of this poem reminds me of a Mary Oliver poem that I’ve posted on this log several years ago (2 july 2020):
I Go Down To The Shore/ Mary Oliver
I go down to the shore in the morning and depending on the hour the waves are rolling in or moving out, and I say, oh, I am miserable, what shall– what should I do? And the seas says in its lovely voice: Excuse me, I have work to do.
